In the 6th match of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2024 between Mumbai Indians and UP Warriorz at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, UP Warriorz won the toss and elected to field first. The Mumbai XI had a slight change with ace pacer Shabnim Ismail and the captain Harmanpreet Kaur missing out on her first WPL game, both having picked up a niggle. Nat Sciver-Brunt was the stand-in captain, becoming the 1st England player to captain in the WPL with the likes of Issy Wong and Humairaa Kaazi coming into the playing XI.
Mumbai had a brilliant start with the bat with in-form Yastika Bhatia (26) finding the fence with ease and Hayley Matthews returning to form, stitching a 50-run opening wicket stand. Nat and Hayley then shared a 42-run stand that saw curtains as a mix-up resulted in Nat being run out on 19(14). Hayley got to her first fifty of the season but departed shortly after on 55, inside 15 overs. Runs of middle-order batters helped Mumbai post a competitive 161 on the board.
During the match, several milestones were recorded, wherein one of them was Issy Wong becoming the 1st player to hit a six off the 1st ball twice in her 1st match of the tournament, which happened firstly against the Gujarat Giants in the WPL 2023 opener and then in the match against UP Warriorz in WPL 2024.
Notably, all the bowlers to bowl got a wicket in the innings; it was the first such instance in the WPL –
Anjali Sarvani 4-0-38-1
Grace Harris 4-0-20-1
Sophie Ecclestone 4-0-25-1
Deepti Sharma 4-0-40-1
Rajeshwari Gayakwad 4-0-38-1
Not only this, but UP Warriorz also, while chasing the target of 162 set by the Mumbai Indians, scored the highest score of the team in WPL in the powerplay of 61-0 in 6 overs with some aggressive batting shown by Kiran Navgire at the top alongside Alyssa Healy.
Promoted to open the batting, Kiran Navgire made the most of the opportunity, scoring a 25-ball fifty, the fastest fifty this season, surpassing Richa Ghosh’s 31-ball fifty that had come against the UP Warriorz in the 2nd match of the WPL 2024.
Fastest 50s in the WPL
1) Sophia Dunkley in 18 balls
2) Shafali Verma in 19 balls
3) Sophie Devine in 20 balls
4) Harmanpreet Kaur in 22 balls
5) Kiran Navgire in 25 balls
Kiran’s blazing innings came to an end in the 10th over, with 94 on the board and a 57 to her name. Her score happens to be the 2nd best for a batter against the formidable Mumbai bowling unit.
Highest scores v Mumbai Indians
1) Alice Capsey – 75(53), 2024
2) Kiran Navgire – 57(31), 2024
3) Alyssa Healy – 58(46), 2023
4) Tahlia McGrath – 50(37), 2023
5) Meg Lanning – 43(41), 2023
At the fall of Kiran Navgire’s wicket, Issy Wong delivered a spell where Mumbai Indians could sense an opening in the match. She took 2 wickets in an over, scalping key wickets of Tahlia McGrath and Alyssa Healy in 3 balls. However, Deepti Sharma and Grace Harris made sure there were no more wickets to fall and guided the UP Warriorz to chase down the required total with 7 wickets remaining in only 16.3 overs.
With the win, UP Warriorz registered their first set of points for the season and did so with the 2nd largest victory for the team in terms of balls remaining.
won by 10 wickets 42 balls remaining vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, 2023
won by 7 wickets 21 balls remaining vs Mumbai Indians, 2024
won by 5 wickets 3 balls remaining vs Mumbai Indians, 2023